ABOUT THE PLAY
We decided to prepare a wonderful English fairy tale for our youngest audience and their parents. It talks about beauty; the kind of beauty everyone needs, but which is increasingly lacking in our lives. We want to show the children that the beauty of a human has two distinct sides: the beauty of the face, which is seen from the outside and the beauty of the soul, which is only felt through the heart. Physical beauty is an exciting phenomenon. It is the source of many different feelings. Some want to get closer to the beauty to be overwhelmed by its magic, others seek to rule over it, while the third are jealous, hate the beauty and want to destroy it.
This fairy tale contains very interesting moments and gives many possibilities for theatrical interpretations. There are a lot of colorful and interesting characters that puppet actors can fine-tune. In our story, the children will see beautiful princess Anne and her half-sibling – the good and cordial princess Kate. They will also be introduced to the self-involved jealous Queen and the horrible character of the old Poulterer. They might find funny the weak character of the Happy Prince, who constantly murmurs and perishes because of his brother, the Handsome Prince. Of course, the audience will also like The Little Fairy – the sweet little blond girl who dreams of growing fast.
All of these characters, as well as the whole play, are a wonderful gift of the Puppet Theater Mostar to the children of Mostar with the only message: Appreciate and preserve the beauty of your life!
Slavčo Malenov, Director
AUTHOR TEAM
Dramatic Adaptation and Director: Slavčo Malenov
Translation from Bulgarian: Predrag Bjelošević
Scenography and Puppet Construction: Vasil Rokomanov
Music: Malen Malenov
Decoration and Puppet Construction: Snežana Grkova, Marijan Sejkov, Rumen Benkovski, Ganka Kirilova, Fatema Nikolova, Vanja Stoilova
Lead Technician: Amer Ćatić
ACTORS
Diana Ondelj Maksumić – Princess Cate, The Queen
Nermina Denjo – Princess Ana, The Queen, The Little Fairy
Nedžad Maksumić – The Happy Prince
Sergio Radoš – The Handsome Prince, The Poulterer
PLAY REVIEW
The scenography is brought to a striking point: in the middle of the scene there’s a wooden construct with an abstract sculptural design and a twist of dynamic lines. These lines move from its imaginary center situated somewhere in the foothill, to the surrounding space, giving it a material definition but without stopping the internal movements in defining something that can only be attributed to the perception of something magical, and perhaps spiritual. The construct or composition or sculpture launches kinetic energy that diffuses in all directions and is modeled either by the circular movement of the structure or in the form of a teeter or perhaps by the preformulation of the relations between elements and lines.
Everything can happen with it: an infinite journey without which there is no fairy tale, the interior of the Emperor’s court, the formulation of horizontal relations between the sisters princesses, the relations of condensed nobility and love, the formation of the cascade, the lower and the upper levels as the principle of malevolence (the relation between the Tzarina – the mother and the stepdaughter Anne), the formulation of the depth in which one prince is suffering, and the other is mourning, while the voice of the mean pythoness witch, who pollutes the man’s habitat with her elixirs, echoes from the foothill. The puppets move along the established lines of force that symbolize the power of nobility and enter the interspace where the story itself is modeled. And the actors, four of them, captivated by the noble charge carried in the story, transform all of this into the allure of the game.
Vojislav Vujanović
